THERE are only 19 days to the last chance for voters to collect the permanent voter’s card, PVC. How many Nigerians know if they are eligible voters for the elections? It is doubtful if any Nigerian with certainty can say his name is on the list.The 2010 Electoral Act, the law that governs elections in Nigeria is specific about the roles of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, in the registration of voters and the maintenance of voters’ register. The law invests INEC with the responsibility of updating the voters’ list.
According to Section 17 (1), “The Commission should design, print and control the issuance of voters’ cards and names to appear in the register”. It also has the additional responsibility of displaying the list, so that excluded names, wrongly included names and misspelt names could be corrected before the elections.
INEC has improved on the registration with the PVC, which would eliminate rigging, if the promises it holds are realised. Things have gone awry so often that INEC has kept changing the dates for collectionof the cards, in order to accommodate millions of voters who would have been disenfranchised. How many Nigerians are sure that they would vote next month? How many would have collected the cards at the end of the day?
Little has been done to get the cards to their owners. Those asking people to travel to local government headquarters to collect their PVCs create the impression that local government offices are on the next street. In some places, a 100km-journey is required to get to local government offices. Who would pay for the journeys? How would people know which days INEC officials would be available? In the remain-ing days, INEC should distribute PVCs at the wards where voters registered.
The importance of voters being on the list by collecting their PVCs is underscored by the fact that it is the only way they can vote in these elections. A registered voter, today, means anyone who has valid PVC. Why is validity important? INEC has admitted that more than one million PVCs have been stolen. Those PVCs should not be valid. INEC has not told voters how to identify valid PVCs.
Other important areas of voters’ education that INEC has ignored is storage of the PVC, not just to save them from theft, but to ensure that the almighty card reader would recognise them.
Since they have electronic pieces do they not demand special care to protect the magnetic field? INEC should provide PVCs at the wards, ensure its staff distribute them, educate voters on PVCs, or, INEC’s ineptitude would ruin the elections by disenfranchising millions of Nigerians.
Little has been done to get the cards to their owners. Those asking people to travel to local government headquarters to collect their PVCs create the impression that local government offices are on the next street. In some places, a 100km-journey is required to get to local government offices. Who would pay for the journeys? How would people know which days INEC officials would be available? In the remain-ing days, INEC should distribute PVCs at the wards where voters registered.
The importance of voters being on the list by collecting their PVCs is underscored by the fact that it is the only way they can vote in these elections. A registered voter, today, means anyone who has valid PVC. Why is validity important? INEC has admitted that more than one million PVCs have been stolen. Those PVCs should not be valid. INEC has not told voters how to identify valid PVCs.
Other important areas of voters’ education that INEC has ignored is storage of the PVC, not just to save them from theft, but to ensure that the almighty card reader would recognise them.
Since they have electronic pieces do they not demand special care to protect the magnetic field? INEC should provide PVCs at the wards, ensure its staff distribute them, educate voters on PVCs, or, INEC’s ineptitude would ruin the elections by disenfranchising millions of Nigerians.
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